18 Oct 2024 | Malta, News and features, Newsletters, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine
Hello, readers. This is Sarah Dawood here, editor of Index on Censorship. Every week, we bring the most pertinent global free speech stories to your inbox.
I must confess that today’s newsletter is very bleak, so I won’t be offended if you click away in search of a more optimistic end to your week. We’re reflecting on how journalists are increasingly being silenced globally, not only with the threat of legal retribution or imprisonment, but with death – often with little or no repercussions for those responsible.
This week marked the seven-year anniversary of the murder of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed in a car bomb attack on 16 October 2017. She reported extensively on corruption in Malta, as well as on international scandals such as the Panama Papers (the historic data leak exposing how the rich exploit secret offshore tax regimes).
Two hitmen were convicted for her murder in 2022, but criminal proceedings are still ongoing against three more suspects, including the alleged mastermind of the assassination and the alleged bomb suppliers. This week, free speech organisations signed an open letter to Malta’s prime minister calling on him to promptly implement robust, internationally-sound legal reform to keep journalists safe in future. The letter pointed to a public inquiry into her death, which found it was both “predictable and preventable”, and highlighted “the failure of the authorities to take measures to protect her”.
The start of this month marked another grim milestone – six years since the death of prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi. He was a regular contributor to major news outlets like Middle East Eye and The Washington Post, as well as editor-in-chief at the former Bahrain-based Al-Arab News Channel. A vocal critic of his government, he was assassinated at a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
Such attacks on free speech continue. We were appalled, for instance, to learn of the death of the 27-year-old Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna last week, a reporter from the front-line of the Russia-Ukraine war who had written for Index about her experiences. The circumstances around her death are still unknown, but we know she died in Russian detention.
Increasingly, governments or powerful individuals act with impunity – whereby their human rights violations are exempt from punishment – willfully ignoring international law that states journalists are civilians and have a “right to life”. For many victims, the course of justice is either delayed, as in Caruana Galizia’s case, or the circumstances around their deaths are obfuscated and murky, as in Roshchyna’s. Question marks remain over who is ultimately responsible, or how it happened, creating a cycle of censorship whereby it’s not only the journalists and their reporting that are silenced, but their deaths.
This impunity has been shown in plain sight throughout the Israel-Hamas war. To date, 123 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces, with the Committee to Protect Journalists concluding that at least five were intentionally targeted. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) deny these claims, yet an Al Jazeera documentary recently revealed that journalists live in fear of their lives, and their families’. One of the most high-profile cases of a targeted attack was that of Hamza al-Dahdouh, the son of Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief and veteran journalist Wael al-Dahdouh, whose wife and another two children were also previously killed in Israeli airstrikes. Two Israeli and three Lebanese journalists have also been killed in the conflict, with the International Criminal Court seeking arrest warrant applications for both Israeli and Hamas leaders for war crimes.
All these cases show a growing disregard for journalists’ lives, but also for the very essence of journalism itself. When not threatened with death or physical violence, media personnel are threatened with imprisonment, the closing of legitimate news offices, internet blackouts, and psychological and financial abuse. SLAPPs – strategic lawsuits against public participation – for instance, are being increasingly used globally by powerful and wealthy people as an abusive legal tool to threaten journalists into silence with eye-watering fines. How can “the fourth estate” truly hold power to account, when those in power can so easily dismantle and destroy their means of doing so?
At a time of devastating global conflict, the ability for journalists to report on stories free from the threat of harm, imprisonment, lawsuits or death has never been more important. To protect journalism itself, international and national law must work harder to protect the individuals most at risk. Without the threat of retribution for powerful individuals, the cycle of censorship will only continue.
17 Oct 2024 | Europe and Central Asia, Georgia, News and features
Do you want war or peace? That is the message plastered across billboards, bus stops, buildings and even vans in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi. Next to the words is a compare and contrast – devastating scenes from Ukraine, with 4, 5, 9 and 25 crossed out in the corner, against pictures of intact Georgian roads with 41 on top. Forty-one is the number of the current ruling party in Georgia, the Georgian Dream. The other numbers belong to the main opposition parties. The message isn’t exactly subtle. Vote for opposition when the country goes to the polls on 26 October and Russia invades; vote for Georgian Dream and peace remains.
Peace perhaps, but freedoms? Less so.
After spending three days in Tbilisi earlier this month as part of a Council of Europe mission – and speaking to journalists, activists, diplomats, politicians and people from various government bodies – the overriding impression is that the rights landscape is in freefall and much of that is because of Georgian Dream.
Georgia has made international headlines several times this year and all for bad reasons. The first instance was in the spring when the government passed legislation called the “transparency of foreign influence” law (often dubbed the foreign agents law, or by opponents, the Russia law). Under it, media and non-governmental organisations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad have to register as “organisations acting in the interest of a foreign power” and must meet onerous disclosure requirements, or face punitive fines.
The law drew sharp criticism from people both within and outside of Georgia, who saw in it an attempt to crush dissent ahead of the elections and remodel the country along Kremlin lines. Tens of thousands took to the streets to protest in some of the largest demonstrations since the country gained independence from Moscow in 1991. They were met with violence. Georgia’s President Salome Zourabichvili, who opposes the government, also vetoed it. None of this mattered. It was signed into law on 3 June.
Last month the “Family Values Bill” was introduced, which is part of a package of bills under the heading of “On Family Values and Protection of Minors”. Don’t be fooled by the wording. The package intends to promote a heteronormative, traditional lifestyle and silence anyone who doesn’t fit that mould. It provides a legal basis for authorities to ban gender transition, nullify same-sex marriages conducted abroad, ban adoption by gay and transgender people, outlaw Pride events and public displays of the LGBTQ rainbow flag, and impose censorship of films and books – amongst other measures. It has been met with opposition. Again, opposition was ignored. The bill was signed into law on 3 October.
Billboards in Tbilisi, Georgia. Photo by Jemimah Steinfeld
When we sat down with a representative from the Georgian Dream, who was very insistent that international NGOs such as Index should not get their facts wrong, I posed a simple, hypothetical question – if material related to LGBTQ themes was removed from universities, would a journalist reporting on the story risk falling foul of the new law? After obfuscation and evasion, he conceded – yes, the journalist would risk that. So, two groups silenced in one move – the LGBTQ community and reporters.
Those working within the media and for NGOs are fearful and emotionally drained. They are being harassed, threatened, arrested, beaten, and having their offices vandalised. They are being taken to court on spurious defamation charges. Crimes are going unpunished, while attempts to access public information are often frustrated or denied, which includes information on the elections themselves. Last month Transparency International Georgia was banned from observing them following a decision by the Anti-Corruption Bureau to classify the international NGO as an entity “with a declared electoral goal” (it is nothing of the sort). Fortunately in this instance the ban was removed following outcry from civil society and opposition politicians. Who remains on the list though?
In reference to the media specifically, a diplomat said they are in survival mode. These words were echoed later when we heard first-person testimony from a reporter critical of the ruling party who has been arrested, whose house exterior has been branded with posters calling him a foreign agent, whose car has been shot at. He takes a chaperone to assignments as a form of protection. His greatest wish today is that he survives the election lead-up unharmed and out of prison.
It wasn’t always like this. Until recently Georgia was held up as one of the more successful countries from the post-Soviet bloc in terms of democratic rights. The Georgian Dream, which has been in power since 2012, started with democratic and reformist aspirations and Georgia was a destination for those seeking refuge from autocratic neighbours. Not so now, as the example of Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Sadygov shows. He was arrested this summer at Tbilisi airport and is currently in detention. If he is extradited to Azerbaijan he will likely be sent straight to jail. We spoke to his wife, Sevinj Sadygova. She had little faith that the current government would reverse her husband’s fate.
Still, all is not lost. The fact that we could conduct this mission and were interviewed on Georgian TV about our findings at the end of it shows some space for dissent remains. That we met with many remarkable people who are dedicated to upholding freedoms shows that their spirit is not yet crushed. But the concern that Georgia is on a path to become the next Belarus, another Russian proxy, is high and it’s easy to see why. Just walk down any street of Tbilisi. You might occasionally see a poster from an opposition party (I did). It’s just their message is being drowned in a sea of posters all brandishing the same number – 41.
Jemimah Steinfeld was invited to Tbilisi, Georgia by the Council of Europe, alongside other free speech and human rights organisations.
11 Oct 2024 | News and features, Russia, Ukraine
The Ukrainian government has confirmed the death of journalist Victoria Roshchyna, who died during a prisoner swap in September. Free expression organisations, including Index on Censorship, are calling on Russia to disclose the circumstances in which the 27-year-old died.
According to Russian news outlet Mediazona, she died whilst being transferred from a prison in Taganrog, a city in the southwest of Russia near the Ukrainian border, to Moscow.
Petro Yatsenko, a Ukrainian government spokesperson for prisoner of war coordination, and Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, head of the Ukrainian parliament’s committee on freedom of speech, yesterday confirmed Roshchyna’s death. Her father has been notified of her death by the Russian authorities, according to Yurchyshyn.
Roshchyna wrote from the front line for several Ukrainian media outlets before she was seized by Russian forces in August 2023 whilst travelling to east Ukraine for a report. Her capture was confirmed by Russia in April 2024.
This was not the first time Roshchyna had been taken by the Russian forces in eastern Ukraine. In April 2022, Index published a powerful piece about her experience of being arrested while travelling from Zaporizhzhia to Mariupol. It is an exemplary piece of level-headed reporting. But it contains some chilling detail, including the moment when a member of the FSB, the Russian secret service, tells her: “If we bury you somewhere here, no one will ever find out. You will be lost forever.”
Index on Censorship will ensure that the memory of Victoria Roshchyna will never be lost.
Jemimah Steinfeld, chief executive of Index on Censorship, said: “The death in custody of any journalist is always gut-wrenching but especially so when it is one we have published. Victoria Roshchyna was a talented young journalist with her life ahead of her. We are proud to count her as an Index writer.
“Her death is a great loss, one that has shaken the Index team. It is also a stark reminder of the threat that Putin’s regime poses to freedoms more generally and to media freedom specifically, which has only increased several years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“We call for an immediate and thorough investigation into the cause of her death and for those responsible to be held accountable. And our thoughts go out to her family, friends and colleagues at this challenging time. May her memory be a blessing.”
7 Aug 2024 | Belarus, Lithuania, News and features, Ukraine, Volume 53.02 Summer 2024
Andrej Strizhak, a human rights activist and Belarus exile, uses an electric scooter to go around the streets of Vilnius’s old town.
“It is a very convenient means of transportation,” he told Index, sitting in a coffee shop at The House of the Signatories where Lithuania’s Act of Independence was signed in 1918.
Strizhak is founder of the Belarus Solidarity Foundation, Bysol, a humanitarian organisation which gives financial help to political prisoners, striking workers and other activists critical of the repressive regime of President Aliaksandr Lukashenka. Recently Bysol has also focused on aid to Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion that Vladimir Putin launched in February 2022.
For Strizhak, both struggles are connected.
“Belarus’s ‘freedom key’ is in Ukraine, and many Belarusians are helping fight the war in Ukraine,” he said. “If Putin fails, then Lukashenka will lose his principal ally.”
His colleague, former male model, fitness trainer and media celebrity turned political activist Andrey Tkachov, joined us in the café. Tkachov like Strizhak is in his thirties. He’s an immensely tall and striking figure, dressed in black. He oversees the management of the Medical Solidarity Fund, operating under the Bysol Foundation umbrella. He sees the conflict in stark terms.
“It is a war between good and evil. Russia is knowingly bombing hospitals and we are working on getting medical supplies and equipment.”
Bysol has raised over $10.7 million and acts as a platform for other organisations or individuals to raise funds for humanitarian causes.
Most of it has been done through cryptocurrency because, as Strizhak explained, it is “hard for the government to trace these transactions.”
During the first days of the Ukrainian war, Bysol received requests for cash to buy vehicles, drones and first aid kits; funds were needed for emergency contraceptive and rape kits for Ukrainian war victims of sexual abuse and for legal fees to pursue justice for war crimes. Within a few days, Bysol raised over $130,000 for Ukrainian humanitarian causes and for Belarusian volunteers working in Ukraine.
As the war progressed, the foundation used its money to aid wounded Belarusian fighters to obtain medical assistance, move to Poland or Lithuania and heal from PTSD. Bysol handed over radios, sets of uniforms for medical doctors and anti-thermal camouflage cloaks to the Belarusians fighting in Ukraine.
They gave others help too.
For those who refused to fight or faced repression for opposing the war, Bysol staff drafted manuals on evacuation from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. They also posted instructions in a Telegram chat group, BysolEvacuation. Users issued advice on how to leave the war zone, discussed visa procedures and shared experiences on border crossings.
Strizhak and other activists first established Bysol in August 2020, as a response to violence against the opposition after the Belarus presidential election which saw Lukashenka winning a sixth term in office. Strizhak had already been detained several times by the police for his political activities and during the election summer, friends advised him to go on “vacation” abroad. He traveled to Kyiv, hoping to spend a month in Ukraine. There, building on his humanitarian work and crowdfunding skills, Strizhak came up with the idea of a fund-raising organisation.
He was joined in Ukraine by Tkachov, with whom he had worked during the Covid-19 pandemic and who had just been released from police custody. Tkachov had stayed in Belarus and joined anti-government protests in Minsk, witnessing police using grenades and shooting at peaceful opposition.
“The day after the elections, my friend and I took a ride around Minsk to check the aftermath of the protests,” Tkachov told Index. “An OMON (special police force) car stopped us and took us to a detention centre.” Officers gave Tkachov some “special attention” for his critical political opinions. He was handcuffed and beaten.
“Some of us fainted from the pain and from the inflicted injuries. We laid in puddles of blood and urine and prayed to be alive,” he said. Eventually, he lost consciousness when a soldier stepped on his neck.
“I regained consciousness only when police brought me to the prison, and a soldier poured water on me,” he said.
Together with the other 35 detainees, he spent three days in a cell suitable to accommodate 10 people.
In the late autumn of 2020 both dissidents decided to move to Lithuania, a member state of the EU and NATO, determined to expand Bysol. “Ukraine did not feel safe enough for us,” explained Strizhak.
Strizhak first raised money through a friend in the Netherlands who opened a fundraising account on Facebook. “We couldn’t do it from Belarus or Ukraine. Only people who live in ‘the white-world’ – the USA or Western Europe – can open fundraising accounts on Facebook,” he said.
Help started pouring in and more so when they were established in Vilnius. The most active supporters of the fund were and still are the Belarusian diaspora.
Walking a thin line between publicity and safety, Bysol has come to rely on cryptocurrency. Using traditional currency, customers rely on bank services and often pay high fees for financial transactions that might take a few days to complete, but cryptocurrency is a digital currency based on a network spread across many computers, unregulated by central government authorities. Unlike traditional financial institutions, opening a cryptocurrency wallet does not require identification verification, credit, or background checks: a person needs just a laptop or a smartphone with an internet connection and there is virtually no way for the government officials to stop, censor or reverse these transactions.
People find Bysol through social media and by word of mouth and the foundation follows a rigorous verification process before providing any help.
“We can’t name recipients and they can’t say ‘Thank you’ to us,” Strizak said.
Tkachov focuses on supporting Belarusian medical professionals and medical causes.
“Medical doctors actively expressed their opposition to the government’s actions. They were the ones who saw wounded, beaten and dead protesters. They described people arriving at the hospital as if they were brought from a battlefield with gunshot wounds or limbs ripped off by grenade explosions,” he said. Many medical doctors who expressed their disagreement about the government’s actions were laid off from state-run hospitals.
The Department of Investigation Committee in Minsk has initiated criminal proceedings against Strizhak who is accused of providing “training of individuals to take part in group activities, grossly violating public order” and financing extremism. Bysol itself has been labelled an extremist organisation and Belarus has listed its founders on the country’s wanted list and the wanted list of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), made up of Russia and other ex-Soviet states still in Russia’s orbit.
Tkachov said he was always interested in history, especially events leading to the outbreak of World War II. “I could not understand why the powerful states could not prevent it,” he said. “Witnessing unfolding events in Ukraine, I finally understood it. When I think about how much more needs to be done, I worry my efforts are not enough, or are not effective enough. We need to help many people.”
Since his early years, Strizhak was determined to bring change to society: “I can’t tolerate hypocrisy, lies or double standards,” he said. He travelled to the Donbas region of Ukraine from 2017 to 2020 to document war crimes committed by pro-Russian separatists. He has mourned the death of close work partners.
Although he is now far from the war zone, he visualises his efforts with a consciousness of the samurai way of “dying before going into battle.” Like Japan’s ancient warriors, he said, he is waging his humanitarian efforts fully committed and without fear.
